Looking back at the 2012 Brecksville-Broadview Heights football season

Brecksville Head Football Coach Jason Black said that Tim Tupa (pictured here) will be the starting quaterback next year. (SUN NEWS STAFF)

It may sound clich to some but one can’t always measure a team’s talent based on its record. In 2012 the Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School varsity football team’s 2012 season record (5-5, 5-2) may not seem impressive, but it rewrote the school’s record books forever.

“This group will probably be the one that I remember as having the most sheer athletic talent and some of the best individual players,” said Head Coach Jason Black. “I thought that this season was a great experience for them beyond wins and losses.”

That experience included life lessons learned as teammates stuck up for each other every single game and came together to overcome adversity several times throughout the year.

The team was tested with adversity early on. After starting the season 0-3 against non-conference, there was a lot of pressure for the team to win against conference opponents to stay in the hunt for the playoffs. However, Black said players didn’t feel as much in the way of pressure, at that time, as they felt the hunger for vindication of their efforts.

“It was more like validation for how hard they worked,” Black said. Black admitted that the team did feel a fair amount of relief after getting its first win Sept. 14 against Berea, 44-0.

That was the first of four straight wins against conference opponents. Unfortunately for the Bees, losses to Avon Lake and then Westlake were enough to knock them out of postseason contention in the end. Avon Lake and Westlake finished 2012 tied for the conference title.

Records set: The Bees set a team record for most points scored in a single season with 295 in 2012.

As far as individual accomplishments for the Bees, they were more than plentiful. Senior quarterback Tom Tupa broke the school’s passing record for a season, which he set in 2010 (1,584 yards), completed 60.2 percent of his passes for 3,187 yards and 31 touchdowns in 2012. He also holds the No. 5 spot in that category for the 980 yards he threw for in 2011 before getting injured.

Tupa is now the all-time leading passer in school history with 5,751 passing yards and 53 touchdowns in his career (2010-2012).

Junior wide receiver Tim Tupa set the school’s season reception record with 69 catches for 1,101 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2012. He is now third in career receptions with 90 catches for 1,429 yards.

Senior wide receiver Tyler Tarnowski set the No. 2 season receiving record with 64 catches for 1,047 yards this year. Tarnowski is now the all-time career reception leader for the Bees with 121 receptions for 1,805 yards and 17 touchdowns (2010-2012).

No. 2 on that list is junior Paul Karthan who has 100 career receptions for 1,535 yards, nine touchdowns and one more year to add to those stats. He is also No. 2 among the team’s all-time top scorers with 159 points, just three behind the record 162 set by Coach John Mutch (1992-1994). Karthan also holds the No. 3 spot for receptions in a season with 52 for 694 yards and three touchdowns in 2012.

Senior defensive end Mike Tyler set the season sack record with 18 in 2012 and is second in school history for career sacks with 21 (2010-2012). He is now No. 4 all-time for solo tackles in a season with 41 and tied for No. 3 in his career with 69.

Junior linebacker Colton Czack took the No. 3 spot for solo tackles in a season with an even 100 in 2012.

Senior defensive back Grant Cunningham picked off four passes in 2012, putting him in a five-way tie for second in a season for the Bees. He came up just shy of his goal of setting the Bees career interception record (7) with six (2010-2012), making him tied for second all-time in that category as well.

Looking forward to next year: Black made no bones about the fact that he is looking to make Tim Tupa the successor to Tom Tupa at the quarterback spot next year, continuing a virtual family tradition that began when Tom Tupa Sr. took snaps for the Bees in the 1980s before moving on to Ohio State and then the NFL.

“Opponents will have to defend us differently because he can run and throw really well,” Black said about putting Tim Tupa in at quarterback as he did when his brother Tom was hurt in 2011.

Black said he’ll be keying in on running back Carlo Milano and wide receiver Nick Shirilla, who will be seniors next year, when it comes to the building the team’s offensive attack in 2013.

He will look to Czack for leadership on defense as the team will strive to improve on the 25 points and 338 yards per game the Bees gave up on average in 2012.

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